Friday, September 30, 2011

Microsoft has reeled in what could be its largest patent fish yet, now that Samsung has agreed to sign a cross-license agreement related to Android in a deal stressing the companies' partnership on Windows Phone. Microsoft will receive royalties for Samsung's Android-based mobile phones and tablets, such as the new Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablet scheduled for release on Oct. 2....

For most people and an iPad is part of their lives. This is because the ipad is the best tablet pc in the market. They are many tablet pcs today but none offers impressive specs than the ipad. This is the main reason why it ws even featured on the Oparah show. Many consumers use the iPad for my reasons ranging from reading eBooks to reading their emails and for entertainment. You can buy iPad at many stores both online [...]

Apple is prepping for an iTunes announcement Nov. 16, leading to rampant speculation over a possible music-streaming service, or possibly the Beatles' catalog. - Apple is planning an iTunes-related announcement for the morning of Nov. 16,tipped by an enigmatic message on its corporate Website quot;Tomorrow is justanother day. That you'll never forget. quot; predictably triggering massivespeculation across the blogosphere. According to Apple's Websit...

The list is just one part of Mozilla's new efforts to highlight slow add-ons, and to help developers make their add-ons more efficient. Over the next two weeks, 'slow performance warnings' will be introduced in the add-on gallery so that users can see, before installation, which add-ons will slow down their browser. If that isn't enough to spur developers into cleaning up their add-ons, Mozilla has also begun reaching out to developers of slow add-ons with tips on how to improve add-on performance. Finally, add-on developers will soon have the ability to perform 'on-demand performance testing,' so that they can test their add-on before it's deployed publicly.

Mozilla reports that the average Firefox add-on slows down Firefox's start-up time by 10% -- which means, if you install 10 add-ons, you will double your start-up time. On fast desktop PCs that kind of slowdown might be negligible, but on older computers, laptops and smartphones, it could be the difference between a 5 and 10 second startup. Mozilla has obviously realized that while massive performance gains might've been made with Firefox 4, the addition of third-party add-ons can destroy any user-perceived improvements.

In other news, Mozilla says that a future build of Firefox will block the installation of add-ons (such as toolbars) by third-party software. Add-ons and toolbars that are bundled in this way will require explicit approval when you next open up Firefox. Hooray!

Hitwise just published a new study examining how much time people living in different countries spend on Facebook. Singaporeans actually spend the longest on the social network, with an average of 38 minutes and 46 seconds per session, while people living in Brazil spend less than half that with an average of 18 minutes and 19 seconds per Facebook session for August 2011. Singapore is followed by New Zealand (30 mins 31 sec); Australia (26 mins 27 sec); the UK (25 mins 33 sec); and the US (20 mins 46 sec). Brazil actually has the highest percentage of Internet visits going to social sites (18.9% of Internet usage) with 43% of all social networking visits in Brazil going to Google-owned Orkut. In contrast, the UK has the lowest market share of visits going to social networks with 12.2% of visits.

By now, we all know that the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. Sprint and C Spire Wireless (formerly known as the Cellular South) have filed suits to that same effect, but AT&T has asked the court to reject those companies' complaints. The reason? AT&T believes that Sprint and C Spire are fighting for their own sakes, and not for the public's best interests.

Exercising, working out, getting fit, whatever you want to call it, is a chore that a lot of us don’t enjoy doing. Finding ways to make physical activity actually beneficial can increase the enjoyment. Because, let’s face it, if your workouts aren’t helping you lose weight or get fit, what’s the point in doing them? [...]

Previously, users could access and download click-wheel games for the iPod classic by clicking on a drop down list next to the App Store button within iTunes, but it looks like the option has now been removed completely. With Apple gearing up to announce the next...

It seems like upsizing is flavour of the day at the moment. �First there was the 23″ Android Tablet�and now there’s the giant Game and Watch hack. Seems appropriate since we did an article on the original Nintendo Game and Watch recently. �The unit is capable of playing the games found at Pica Pic. I [...]

While we've still yet to see anything truly Earth-shattering, the tandem of Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott continues to churn out insight about interesting new features they've discovered in Windows 8 milestone 3. The latest discovery is that Aero in Windows 8 will be able to automatically adapt itself to match your current wallpaper image. It's a bit like what Windows 7 already does with your taskbar icons: if a program alert needs your attention, the icon will glow using the predominant color (e.g. Firefox should glow orange).

And yes, you can already make Windows 7 behave this way if you like. Over at CodePlex, there's a little program called Aura that parks itself in your system tray and automatically adjusts your window borders to compliment your wallpaper images. The effect is quite nice, and you can try it out by minimizing your windows and cycling through your theme's wallpapers (right click on your desktop and choose next desktop background).

This morning, Corel released VideoStudio X4. We've already published a quick overview and hands-on of the application, and now is the moment you've all been waiting for: We're giving away ten full licenses of this new version, each worth $99.99!

To enter our random draw, you just have to leave a comment. Full terms and conditions are after the break.

Today Amazon announced 4 new devices and I was so excited, that I ordered / pre-ordered 3 of them (Kindle, Touch 3G and Fire). New hardware might be fun, but I think we should all be more excited about the Kindle Fire’s new Silk web browser. It’s not been that long ago that the only [...]

After months of rumors, blurry pictures of prototype cases (or someone?s old loafer) it appears that Apple is going to introduce a new iPhone model and I see little reason for all this excitement. Okay, give me a few minutes before you grab your torches and pitchforks. The iPhone is a fine smartphone. It has [...]

On March 31, as part of the global data-saving initiative, you are encouraged to back up all of your cherished photos and videos, and important documents. If you've ever had a hard disk fail, and not had a backup to fall back on, you'll know that it's a bit like losing a sizable fragment of your soul. If you've never backed up your important files -- or if you only back up sporadically -- do it on World Backup Day!

It's not hard to back up your data, either. A 2TB drive costs only a fistful of dollars, and it takes just a few minutes to set SyncToy for Windows, or Time Machine for Mac, to mirror your data every night. If you prefer a cloud-based solution, there's always SugarSync and Dropbox. Finally, don't forget that Bundlelytic has a charity giveaway for three excellent data-backup-and-recovery tools -- $160 of software for only $25, and 100% of the proceeds to go the Japanese Red Cross.

[Photo: faustus70 on Etsy]Remember when toys used to be made out of real metal, and not this chintzy chromed-plastic stuff we have today? At least we can go back to the old days by DIY-modding stuff--or go even further back, like Lincoln-logs era, by strapping antique wood to a Nerf gun.

Wait, what?

Etsy seller faustus70 (aka Neil Taylor) had a Nerf N-Strike Barricade gun and an ?at least? 75-year-old wood chair lying around, and he thought, why not put these together? He refashioned the standard-issue Nerf into a ?steampunk big daddy gun?, wrapped in wood planks held together by hand-cut aluminum strips and hand riveted in place.

Hard. Core. [Photo: faustus70 on Etsy]

Of course, the whole thing still works as a Nerf gun, complete with the 10-dart barrel magazine and top chamber access. But the modifications also made the Nerf gun even better with a taller stock, 3x scope, metal paint, and the whole badass steampunk aesthetic.

A while back, we told you about AVG's new LiveKive service, a new cloud synchronization and backup tool which appears to have been named after a vat in which mash is made during the brewing process. But enough about AVG's odd choice of monikers -- LiveKive has launched and is now ready to accept your files into the AVG cloud.

LiveKive takes aim at services like Dropbox and SugarSync, though at the moment it's lagging behind in terms of features. As it stands, LiveKive is only compatible with Windows and OS X. There are no mobile clients yet, though with AVG's strong presence on Android we wouldn't be surprised to see an app arrive in the near future.

The company is offering a heck of a deal right now, however. If you sign up for a paid account during the launch phase, you can score unlimited storage for $80 for a whole year. You can't even score 50GB per year at that price from Dropbox, so if cost and space are more important to you than cross-platform availability, LiveKive might be worth checking out.

If you're not interested in ponying up any cash at the moment, you can still get a 5GB account free of charge. Just head on over, and create a LiveKive account.